The Good News?

Ever wonder why the Gospels are called the 'Good News? I was speaking with an 'anti-theist' the other day about free will and the problem of pain (the latter is the only good argument for being an atheist, but more on that later). The Christian answer to why there is pain in the world is that we have used our free will to become very bad. This doctrine is well known and hardly needs to be stated, but to bring this doctrine to light in the modern world, and even among Western Christians is very hard.

When the apostles preached, they could assume even among their pagan listeners, a real consciousness of deserving divine anger. It was against this background that the Gospel appeared as 'Good News'. It brought the good news of possible healing to people who were mortally ill. But all this has changed. Christianity in the West now has to preach the diagnosis which is itself very bad news, before it can win any hearing for the good news. Which is one of the reasons that Christianity is so unpopular in modern day America. Because it makes no sense at all unless there is a problem. "Jesus is a savior -- from what? Poverty, ignorance, voting for the wrong candidate? From Sin? Sin, what's that?"

So you have to preach the bad news before the good news makes any sense. I believe sin to be a fact, and the holier a man is the more aware he is of that fact. Who is the authority on how drunk you are: drunk people or sober people?